Newspaper Cans Editor for Blasting Driver’s License Gender Options

The Burlington Free Press fired its editor Monday night over comments he made about a state plan to add a third gender option to Vermont state driver’s licenses. That’s according to a statement on the paper’s website.

Editor Denis Finley got canned after a Twitter firestorm blew back in the paper’s face. Finley responded this way to the state’s move: “Awesome! That makes us one step closer to the apocalypse.”

It’s so rare to see someone lose their job for overt transphobia- this is so satisfying to read. It’s the good kind of apocalypse Denis Finley where people who abuse power and position actually lose their jobs! https://t.co/oee7HSp6zg

The official cause for Finley’s termination was for failing “to adhere to the company’s code of conduct and ethics policy,” which require “overarching values of fairness, balance and objectivity.”

Finley used to be the editor of a different newspaper in Norfolk, Virginia, according to that paper’s coverage of his termination. The Virginian-Pilotreports he worked at that paper for 28 years, serving for ten years as editor. He left to work at a museum for a year before Gannett hired him to work as managing editor of its Burlington, Vermont newspaper.